Excel Assessment Test Practice

What the real test usually looks like

There is no single standard Excel test. Employers buy tests from assessment publishers or write their own tasks, and the format depends on the publisher and the level of the job. These are the formats publishers describe in public:

• Short multiple choice. Criteria's Excel 2013 and 2016 tests have 20 multiple choice questions with a 10-minute overall limit. Its Excel 365 test has 12 questions, a 1-minute limit per question, and draws from large item banks, so candidates rarely see the same set. TestGorilla lists its Microsoft Excel (General) test at 16 questions in 10 minutes, at intermediate level.
• Simulation (hands-on). You work in a spreadsheet-like screen and complete tasks. Criteria's Excel 365 Interactive adds 3 simulations of 1 minute each and must be taken on a computer. Testlify lists an Excel simulation test at 30 minutes, with tasks such as building PivotTables, writing formulas and making charts.
• Take-home or live tasks. Analyst and finance roles often send a data file with questions, or ask you to share your screen and work through a task in an interview.

Adaptive or fixed. Criteria says its 2013 and 2016 tests show every candidate the same questions and measure basic proficiency, while its 365 tests are adaptive and cover the full range of skill.

What about Indeed? Many people remember the Excel tests on Indeed. Indeed now states that Indeed Assessments has been sunset and is no longer available to new customers, so a current employer is more likely to use one of the publishers above or its own task.

Almost every version covers the same core: SUM, AVERAGE, IF, COUNTIF and SUMIF, lookups, relative and absolute references, sorting and filtering, PivotTables, charts and formatting. Microsoft's own pages are the best reference for how each feature behaves: XLOOKUP, PivotTables and cell references.

Microsoft Excel, Criteria, TestGorilla, Testlify and Indeed are trademarks of their owners. Intellect Council is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them.

Question types with worked examples

Seven question types that come up on most Excel tests, each with the method and the trap. None of these repeat the free sample.

1. Conditional totals with SUMIFS. Column B holds the region, column C the quarter and column D the amount. Which formula totals North sales in Q2?

Answer: =SUMIFS(D:D,B:B,"North",C:C,"Q2"). Method: in SUMIFS, the range you add comes first, then each criteria range followed by its condition. Trap: SUMIF puts the sum range last, so people mix the two orders. If a question uses one condition, both work; with two or more, only SUMIFS does.

2. The missing FALSE in VLOOKUP. =VLOOKUP(E2,A:B,2) returns a price, but it is wrong for some codes. Why?

Answer: without a fourth argument, VLOOKUP uses approximate match, which assumes column A is sorted and can return a near neighbor instead of the exact code. Fix: =VLOOKUP(E2,A:B,2,FALSE), or use XLOOKUP, which matches exactly by default. Trap: the formula returns a number, not an error, so the mistake is easy to miss.

3. Mixed references. You build a times table with numbers 1 to 10 in A2:A11 and 1 to 10 in B1:K1. What do you type in B2 so you can copy it across and down?

Answer: =$A2B$1. The dollar sign before A locks the column, and the one before 1 locks the row. Trap: =$A$2$B$1 copies the same result into every cell, and =A2*B1 drifts away from the headers.

4. Order of operations. A2 holds last year's sales of 200 and B2 this year's 250. Which formula gives the growth rate?

Answer: =(B2-A2)/A2, which returns 0.25, or 25% when formatted as a percentage. Trap: =B2-A2/A2 divides first, so it returns 250 - 1 = 249. For more practice with percentage change itself, see our percentage questions guide.

5. Cleaning text. A2 holds the text " INV-20931 " with extra spaces. You need just "INV". Which formula works?

Answer: =LEFT(TRIM(A2),3). TRIM removes the leading and trailing spaces, then LEFT takes the first three characters. Trap: =LEFT(A2,3) returns two spaces and the letter I, which looks almost right in a narrow cell.

6. PivotTable shows Count, not Sum. You drag Amount into Values and see "Count of Amount". What is the most likely cause?

Answer: Microsoft notes that a PivotTable sums a numeric field by default, but counts it when Excel reads the data as text. Look for numbers stored as text in the Amount column, convert them to numbers, then refresh. Trap: changing the summary to Sum without fixing the data hides the problem.

7. Dates are numbers. A2 holds 3/1/2026 and B2 holds 3/15/2026. What does =B2-A2 return?

Answer: 14, because Excel stores dates as serial numbers and the difference is a count of days. Trap: if the cell shows a date such as 1/14/1900, the formula is right but the cell is formatted as a date. Change the format to General or Number.

How to prepare

1. Ask which format to expect. Multiple choice, simulation and take-home tasks need different practice. A recruiter will usually tell you if you ask, and the invitation often names the publisher.
2. Work out your pace. On a test with 20 questions in 10 minutes, such as Criteria's Excel 2016 test, you have 30 seconds per question. On its Excel 365 test, each question has its own 1-minute limit. Practice until a basic formula question takes you under 30 seconds.
3. Practice in real Excel. Reading about a formula is not the same as typing it. Build each formula on this page yourself once, then change a value and check the result updates.
4. Master the core ten: SUM, AVERAGE, IF, COUNTIF and COUNTIFS, SUMIF and SUMIFS, XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP, ROUND, text joining with & and TRIM, sorting and filtering, and PivotTables.
5. Learn the shortcuts that save time, but do not depend on them. F4 cycles through absolute and mixed references, Ctrl+Shift+L turns filters on, and Ctrl+T makes a table. Simulations sometimes disable shortcuts, so know the menu route too.
6. Know the error codes. #N/A means a lookup found nothing, #REF! a deleted reference, #VALUE! a wrong data type, #DIV/0! division by zero or a blank, and #### a column too narrow.
7. Type formulas carefully on simulations. Some simulations do not autocomplete or forgive typos. Check brackets and commas before you press Enter.
8. Use a laptop or desktop. Simulation tests usually require a computer, and multiple choice questions with formulas are much easier to read on a large screen.

How scoring usually works

Multiple choice tests count correct answers. On an adaptive test, such as Criteria's Excel 365 version, the questions change with your answers, so your result reflects the difficulty of what you answered as well as how many you got right.

Simulations check whether each task produced the right result. Some also record how long you took.

What the employer sees. Usually a total score or a level, sometimes compared with other candidates. Employers set their own target for the job: a receptionist may need only basic formatting and sums, while a financial analyst may need lookups, PivotTables and clean data handling. There is no universal pass mark, and publishers rarely make one public.

Our practice score is the number of our own questions you got right, with a breakdown by skill: formulas, references, lookups, logic, PivotTables and formatting. It shows where to focus. It is not a score from any real test.

Excel skills by job level

Employers usually test the level the job needs. Use the job description to decide how far up this list to go.

Basic (admin, reception, customer service). Entering and formatting data, SUM and AVERAGE, simple IF, sorting and filtering, page setup and printing, and basic charts.

Intermediate (operations, sales support, HR, accounts). COUNTIFS and SUMIFS, XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP with exact match, absolute and mixed references, conditional formatting, data validation, text functions such as LEFT, RIGHT, TRIM and TEXT, and creating and filtering PivotTables. If the role is in finance, our accounting test for job interviews covers the bookkeeping side.

Advanced (analyst and finance roles). Nested logic with IFS or IF with AND and OR, INDEX with MATCH, dynamic arrays such as FILTER, UNIQUE and SORT, PivotTables with calculated fields, cleaning data with Power Query, and building a short summary or chart from raw data under time pressure.

If the test is part of a wider assessment for a data role, you may also get a numerical reasoning test, which uses the same chart and table reading skills without Excel.

How this practice compares with the real test

What we match. The skills employers test most, multiple choice questions in a similar style to short Excel screens, and real time pressure. Every answer follows Microsoft's documented behavior, and every question has an explanation.

What we cannot match. We do not run a live spreadsheet, so we cannot copy a simulation that checks your clicks and keystrokes. Publishers also use their own question banks and difficulty levels, which we never see.

How to cover the gap. Use our questions to find weak spots and learn the rules, then rebuild those formulas in Excel itself. If your invitation says the test is a simulation, spend at least one session doing tasks in Excel against a timer: build a PivotTable from a raw list, write a lookup, and apply a conditional format, without looking anything up.

Excel test day checklist

• Device: a laptop or desktop with a mouse if you have one. Charge it and close other programs.
• Browser: use an up-to-date browser and check the invitation for any system test link. Run it the day before.
• Excel version: if the test names a version, such as Excel 365 or Excel 2016, note that menus can differ slightly. Function names are the same.
• Keyboard: a Mac keyboard uses different shortcuts. If you normally use Windows, practice on the machine you will use on the day.
• Time: check whether the clock is per question or for the whole test, and do not stay stuck on one formula.
• Notes: have paper ready for quick sums and to note the question numbers you want to revisit, if the test allows going back.